The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: UFC 291 Preview

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Tony Calatayud is joined by Conner Burks of the MMA Hour to break down UFC 291 in Salt Lake City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. All right, listeners to the Dan Levitort show you guys know what the deal is. You have to hang out your boy 10 day Tony Tony Collady. I'm here joined by a God amongst men. Connor Bird. You know this is our high to brace. Our high to brace. That is that is not even close. You know this juicy from the end of the hour. Connor, one of my ESPN brethren from back in a day and we're out here making it happen. UFC 291 Salt Lake City gets another numbered UFC event. Yeah, here we go. We're going to make Salt Lake City. I mean, shout out, bro, I'm back to Salt Lake City.

I was there for the All Star game and I saw the belt. They had it in like the corner of the rotunda of like the Toyota, whatever, like lounge. It was in the back in the closet. Leon Edwards gloves, the belt, pictures of the knockout and like a little tiny shrine like four feet by three feet getting absolutely zero love for one of the greatest headkicks finishes of all time. One of the greatest like one of the greatest moments like in MMA history in sports. Yes, yes, like I cannot watch that without like getting chills like when John Anik gets gives like the no way with like the most

Just this belief like I remember when it happened jaw absolutely on the floor I was literally speechless. I had no words and it's just like stuff next to like John stocked and when he has like a 27 assist game. It's just like it's not even close to the jazz stuff. It's close to like Monster truck rally air fanalia. It's so weird. If somebody can never find a picture of that, like please send it to us because I need to see like the corner that it's in. But getting to this one, 291, first off, how could we be 290? Right? 290 was just up and down, classic card. Volk again becomes, you know, champ and cementing his legacy at featherweight. But when I started looking ahead at 2.91 and you look at Justin Gachi versus Dustin, uh, Porje, Yombohovich versus Alex Pateta, all the entire card all the way down,

bangers of fights, UFC is on one right now. Dude, I really, like I've said it a few times, and the man I work with area, Hawaii says it a lot, the UFC, it's almost like they can do no wrong, man. It's just like when you look at what they're putting out, especially with these paper views, I mean, 2.92, with Al Jouon and Shugashan, Banger, their head in Australia, we just got the announcement of Islam,

Olivera, and Paul Koss, the going up against Shemaia. It's just like, you look at the order of things. John Jones is fighting in November. It's just like, it's just like, they just keep churning it out, man. And it's like, how can we top to 90? And they're just like, here's to 91. Where what this might lack with stakes, you know,

obviously, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a subletter of the BMS. Let's go. Silver's on the line on Saturday night, all right? Many men have held gold. Only one has ever held so. Exactly. And he, he resides in beautiful Miami. That's right.

He's a sporting monster at all. He'll be wrapping the belt around the winter on Saturday night. Honestly though, like it's, it is obviously like a gimmick belt. Like it's something just to add a little hype and there's no other titles on the line 292, two title fights on that one and the comment being an absolute banger between Marino and Ventosha. We make up for in this regard,

just with straight bangers. Like this main event, Dustin Poria and Justin Gatia, I can guarantee you if you are on the fence about watching this fight, let me just go ahead and just tell you you need to be watching this fight. There is absolutely zero evidence throughout these guys' entire careers that leads you to believe that this is not going to be a bang or a wave fight. Really the only way that I see it not being just an all-out war is if there's an early

knockout. I mean, they fought before. It made it to the fourth round, and it was just the back and fourth of pair the entire way. And if you just look at both of these guys' careers, that's important. Time for the most fight of the nights in UFC history with eight and Justin Gaggie.

The only man to have three fight of the years, like these dudes put on shows, man, and they're going against each other. They know what's on the line. Both these guys getting in the twilight of their careers as well. They know they don't have many left in them. They're going to go wild out, and it's going to be bad as. This feels to me like what I call a phone booth fight, right?

You could have told these two guys in a phone booth, and they are going to throw a haymaker after haymaker after haymaker. I think I saw a stat where Justin Gachy has 17 fight bonuses, like the pay-out for fight bonuses. He's got seven points. Dustin Porreas says paid in full. Justin Gagey's paid in full from making like, I mean, I don't even know how much that is.

Seven, how much money that is. That's an obscene amount of money just. I can't do the math. We're doing 50K for a fight bonus and you're talking about 17 of them. I can't do that. $850,000. $850,000, just on like under the table checks. Who knows who knows how much I've just showed up in his mailbox to like, you know, appreciate

the banger. Here's a here's an extra quarter million. And the other thing too about about Gachi is strikes landed per minute, 7.28, which is insane. I think it's the highest among active 55ers. This is going to be a banger. Like the only way outside of an early knockout that this doesn't go the distance and end up being a banger fight is if there's some sort of eye poke.

If there's something like that, okay. Yes, let me knock on wood. Cause I don't have any close to me. I have said this, but a couple of people have been like dude you're jinxing it you're jinxing it Here's what I mean by like it's almost guaranteed a banger There is no chance there is no world where these guys come in here timid and like stare at each other and it's like leg kicks and they're like Clinching up against the cage or it's just like lay in pray wrestling These dudes are going to go at it if they're given the opportunity

and I obviously believe they're about to be given the opportunity and it's just gonna be incredible. When it comes to who's gonna win, man, flubacorn bro. It's a coin-free, right? I really don't know. And I think that just makes it that much better that it's just like, I don't even know who's gonna win.

It's not like someone's coming in here like trying to pull off a miracle like this is to very evenly match dudes. Even more so who I think I'm, who I think is gonna win, I don't even know who to root for. Cause I love both dudes, right? How can you not?

How can you not? They've delivered so many fantastic moments over the course of their careers. Like I love Justin, I love Dustin. Dustin has a absolute steel chain. Dude gets punched, kicked. And what's been making the rounds on social media is Dustin's leg, post, poorie, Gachi won. Where was his whole hamstring was just black from leg kicks. I think he absorbed 45 leg kicks that night. And it was just a black hamstring like he had bruising everywhere and just you don't you can't tell like he's just such a

Haas and gate you the same way too against Fazeev who kicks like a mule and He was just taking shots and then all the sudden ends up where it's like oh, it's it's clear that gate you won the fight those those two guys are just Incredible what they do and it's it's really incredible that Gigi pulled off that fight. I mean, he was a pretty big dog coming into that physique fight and Fizzif was supposed to be this next prototype coming in at 155 and Gigi was like, not yet and like I'm making one more run at this and it starts on Saturday night. If you if you still have any questions, I think Porya was quoted this week saying,

I don't think this is gonna go 25 minutes, and if it does, me and Justin can have a conversation about that when we're both at the hospital, because that's where we're at. Like they're just like, I'm ready for war, bro. Like, bodies getting sacrificed, and I salute them for it, because it is going to be wildly entertaining. One word who you got.

Porea, give me this diamond. I love that. All right, moving on to the co-main event. Yom Blahovic versus Alex Badeira, his first foray into the light heavyweight division. And Badeira is just, I've seen him twice in person.

I saw him at MSG when he fought Izzy and beat him the first time. And I saw him hit down here in Miami when Izzy beat him During the press conferences I've never seen a scarier person in real life But it is just a cyborg. He's a robot of just a mercenary of death I don't know what to call him. He's just a guy that I would never want to be in the same room with again

So I have actually met him as well. He's just a guy that I would never want to be in the same room with again. So I have actually met him as well. He came onto the MMA hour and he came in studio. And so massive. And like nice guy, like he's like nice, but like he's also insanely intimidating. Like it's just like, Hey man, can I get your mic pack?

And he's just like, just like hands it off. He's like, no words. Terrifying man with an insane wealth of combat sports experience. Obviously coming over from kickboxing, fighting Izzy twice over there and now twice in MMA. And I mean, he's shown, he can hang with the big dogs. Like he's an absolute monster. The death touch in the left hand, like he can strike

with the best of them. Where you have to be concerned here is obviously the grappling and going up against the guy in Yombo Hover who we saw use the grappling against this real out of Sony when he made his move up to 205. A couple of the concerns I have for Alex Brera, debuting in 205. We don't know how he's going to look at this way class. Obviously, he's going to fill out six four is going to be coming into the confetti.

He walks around to 30 or something. It's crazy. I'm not too concerned about him being big enough. One thing that I really am concerned about, three months ago, you saw it in Miami. He got sent to the shadow realm. Like he was out cold, there's videos of him where Izzy is like done celebrating and...

Still not. He's like, I'm still not sure where I'm at. You don't know how he's gonna react, coming back into a fight after that. Last thing I'll say on that, kickboxing though, they do fight much more frequently. So maybe that's an adjustment that he can make. It's gonna be a banger.

I think Yon's going to be smart. I think he's gonna come in and use some grappling. But I wouldn't necessarily underrate his striking. Like, it's not the smartest game plan to stand and strike with a world champion kickboxer, but I think if he mixes in the grappling and he limits the striking, I think he can have some success here.

But it does, I wish with obviously the news of Jamal Hill tearing his Achilles because of the UFC fighter basketball game, which, which, guys, what are we doing? First off, second off with him relinquishing the belt. Man, I wish to use, like this would have been kind of the cherry on top of. We'll put these two guys at light heavy and this will be the title fight. Could you imagine that this would be, I think, Alex Brarris six fight in the UFC and he

would already have three title fights, two of which at different weight classes like, come on, like, we really push him that hard. Like, this would be absolutely ridiculous. He could have been six fights in two as UFC career and already held that. That's a couple two different divisions. It would be absolutely ridiculous. Um, who do you think wins? I'll say, Yom, because I think he fights with a smart game plan, but if we go through

full first round and they stay standing the entire time, I'll take the rare, but trusting Yom to come in with a good game. I like, I like poet on man set that one hit or quitter knock out power. He's God. It's like, dude, he comes out with that. Oh, man. And then he stops. Just get to that.

Dude, I heard him scream over everybody else's screen at the Kaseyah Center. It was insane. 30 seconds for quick. What's the other fight on this car that you're like, yeah, this is the one. Give me Matt Semmel's burger versus roast Medish. Medish never gone longer than eight minutes in his career.

Semmel's burger, six knock downs in his last three fights. Those dudes are gonna come in and stand, trade, someone's getting put out. I love it. He's Connor Burke to the MMA Hour. Brother Plug, everything that you do. MMA Hour, Mondays and Wednesdays, on MMA Fighting YouTube. MMA Hour and Dallas for date, they, the Esmeris Jake Paul next week. That's all, that's it, that's it.

Let's go. They, the Esversed Jake Paul next week. That's all, that's it, that's it. Let's go!